I joked him, and told him I knew
his hiding-place, and would return and fetch the wheat. All over these
hills things are hidden, and often money, which is sometimes lost for
ever, the owner dying without pointing out his hiding-place. There was
no herbage for camels to-night, but we had brought a little hasheesh
with us. A strong wind set in towards evening and continued nearly all
night, preventing us from sleeping. We were much exhausted by our day's
march, and so were all our animals; they suffer much from these long
stretches. We gave them dates, as we give horses corn.
_14th._--We rose before daylight, and got off by sunrise, continuing
till about two hours after noon. The wind was so exceedingly strong,
blowing from the south-east, that we did not feel the heat of the sun.
But now and then we had strong gusts of hot wind, like the breath of a
furnace. I tied a thin dark cotton handkerchief over my eyes, and found
great relief.
Our course is now south, over a high sandy plain. We are at length
fairly in the Land of Demons, as the country of the Ghat Tuaricks is
called by themselves. All around, the mountains take castellated forms,
and high over all rises the Kasar Janoon, Palace or Citadel of the Ginn:
a huge square mass of rock, said to be a day in circuit, and bristling
with turret-pinnacles, some of which must be seven hundred feet in
height. Nothing but its magnitude can convince the eye at a distance
that it is not a work raised by human hands, and shattered by time or
warfare.
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